The USPS Holiday Mobile Shopping Promotion

The Postal Service provides an opportunity to add value to Direct Mail and increase Sales.

Understanding changes in consumer behavior will help marketers remain relevant and improve ROI.  To maximize reach, invest in a mobile-optimized web experience and look beyond a single marketing channel.

The Demand Exists

1. Smartphone ownership in the USA is 46%.
2. Smartphone adoption is on the rise in nearly every corner of the globe.
3. Since Christmas 2011, the tablet market has grown 19%.
4. Smartphone users are more likely to buy from retailers with mobile- optimized sites.
5. When faced with mobile site difficulty, 40% of consumers said they will go to a competitor’s website, and 19% said that a negative mobile site experience leaves the user with a very unfavorable impression of the company.
6. 62.4 million Americans access Facebook via their mobile device each month, with 38.2 million of these respondents stating that they use their phones to connect to social media almost every day.
7. Nearly 60% of respondents use Facebook via their mobile device to read updates of organizations, brands or events.

USPS Holiday Mobile Shopping Promotion

Recently, the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC)  approved the 2012 Holiday Mobile Shopping Promotion scheduled to run November 7 – 21, 2012, with registration beginning in September.   The  holiday promotion is designed to spur mobile purchasing by putting mobile-optimized promotional offers, coupons and catalogs into their customers’ hands in time for Black Friday-Cyber Monday shopping sprees.
As technology changes the marketing landscape, the Postal Service must ensure that direct mail continues to be a relevant part of the marketing mix. This promotion is intended to show how direct mail combined with mobile technology can be a convenient method for consumers to do their holiday shopping. 

Discount and Rebate Amounts
The Holiday Mobile Shopping Promotion will provide business mailers with an upfront two-percent postage discount on Standard Mail® and First-Class Mail® letters, flats and cards (presort and automation) that include a mobile barcode or print/mobile technology that can be read or scanned by a mobile device and leads the recipient to a mobile optimized shopping website.  The technology must lead the recipient to a website that allows the recipient to purchase an advertised product on the mobile device (the sale of services will not qualify). 
Mailers may also qualify for an additional one-percent rebate on the postage of their qualifying mailings if a portion of their orders are fulfilled via Priority Mail® between November 9, 2012 and December 31, 2012. 

The USPS is Expanding use for Political Ads!

The U.S. Postal Service is expanding the use of Tag 57 to include political message mailings from Political Action Committees (PACs), Super-PACs, or other organizations engaging in issue advocacy or voter mobilization. We want to ensure that this volume receives visibility within the U.S. Postal Service mail stream. 

Expanded use of Tag 57

Tag 57 can be used for any political campaign mailing by a registered political candidate, campaign committee, and committee of a political party, or political message mailing by a Political Action Committee (PAC), Super-PACs, or other organizations engaging in issue advocacy or voter mobilization.

Tag 57 is a red container tag designed to provide visibility to political mail while it’s in the mailstream.

Political Campaign Mail is any piece mailed for political campaign purposes by a political candidate, a campaign committee, or a committee of a political party to promote political candidates, referendums, political campaigns or political message mailing by a Political Action Committee (PAC), Super-PACs, or other organizations engaging in issue advocacy or voter mobilization.

Official Election Mail is any mailpiece created by an authorized voting registration official that is mailed to or from a citizen of the United States for the purpose of participating in the voting process. It includes:

• Mail-in ballots            

• Ballot materials

• Voter registration cards

• Absentee applications                                                             

• Polling place notifications.

Election mail does not include political campaign mail.

Posts We Love

Here are few articles that have been buzzing around the office, we thought we would share with you.

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In the past, organizations often didn't take steps to tackle issues with inaccurate customer information because it resided in multiple, unconnected databases. Individual business units kept their own records, so departments like sales, service, marketing and billing may have had data on the same customer in different formats on different servers with no standardization. Even with integrated CRM systems, this issue ....

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Internet marketing is about lots of little things, not one big one. This list is half-list, half-procedure. If you go down these items in order it might give you a decent internet marketing plan for the next few months. If you have others, post ’em as comments:

1. If you have a Flash introduction on your web site, delete it. If you don’t agree, try this: Shove your head into a bucket of water. Stay in there, not breathing, for 10 seconds longer than is comfortable. That’s what you’re doing to your customers. Delete it, please.
2. Check the load speed of every page on your site. If any load in more than 10 seconds, fix it (2-6 seconds is far better). If your developer says they can’t, and it’s not your own network causing the problem, fire them. Here’s a good page load tester.
3. Check your site for broken links. You can use a tool like Xenu. Fix those links. Do not pass this step until you’re done. If it takes your developer more than a week to do this step, again with the firing thing.

Marketing: Bests and Worsts

Pretty in love with this Infographic from MarketingDegree.com. Thanks!

Infographic by